Patriate (Paperback)

Description

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EXCERPT:



Until you make one thousand



of a form, the potter warned,

you will not truly understand it.



He strode from student

to student smashing down

imperfect cylinders they'd pleaded

upward out of mud.



Think of this in yoga class, aching up

into the seven-hundredth downward­

facing dog, still comprehending only clumsiness.



Think of this in the marriage bed

with your new husband. Pray you both live

long enough to make the one thousandth reprise.



Think of the ash tree, bringing forth

new thousands of leaves in perfection

each spring: tossing them lightly

away in fall.



Think of writing one thousand

sonnets, one thousand sestinas, one

thousand ghazals.



Think of relinquishing

hope of understanding

anything.

Praise For…

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“At once wild and disciplined, [Cabanis-Brewin] is a trustworthy guide ‘around the weedrank barnyard,’ ‘into the tunnel of rhododendron’ and beyond ‘the dark iris of the mind.’ You come too.”



—R.T. Smith, editor of Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review